Stradivarius: One Cello, Five Violins and a Geniusby Toby FaberMacmillan £16.99, pp295

Even the most straightforward biography of Antonio Stradivari, the virtuoso instrument-maker whose craftsmanship to this day baffles scientists and musicians alike, would make for a gripping read. The mystery surrounding his wife's involvement in the 1664 murder of her first husband; the unlikely emergence in the 17th century of plague-ravaged Cremona as the capital of violin innovation; the intense rivalries that arose between celebrated luthiers such as Giuseppe Guarneri and Francesco Rugeri; and Stradivari's inspired experimentation with shape, size and materials (not to mention his fretful search for a suitable successor) would have been enough to keep most biographers busy.

But Toby Faber is far too restless and instinctive a storyteller to be content with a single time or place. His is more of a quest across centuries and continents in search of elusive treasures rather than a conventional 'life'. As with the relentlessly sought-after object of a Hollywood movie's chase - the statuette in The Maltese Falcon, the radioactive briefcase in Pulp Fiction - for Faber there are six MacGuffins here, carefully plucked from the 600 'Strads' known to survive.

It is fascinating to follow his passionate pursuit of the Davidov, a cello currently in the hands of Yo-Yo Ma, and five violins, including the fabled Messiah. Though there is the occasionally eye-crossing indulgence in technical jargon - one has only so much patience for the particularities of 'purfling' - for the most part, Faber treats his objects like women. His sensual descriptions of the instruments are capable of conjuring Man Ray's famous photograph of the nude with F-holes stencilled on her back.

It isn't long, however, before Faber's infatuation with these Stradivari masterpieces becomes a pretext for linking together the long-forgotten stories he is really interested in.

We are introduced to Giuseppe Tartini, a kind of 18th-century Robert Johnson, into whose possession one of the violins, the Lipinski, fell; he composed the 'Devil's Sonata' after a dream in which he sold his soul to Satan in exchange for supernatural talent.

Then there are the inevitable allegations of forgeries and fakes. Faber describes the larger-than-life virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti who, it is thought, acquired the Strad now named after him as a love token from Catherine the Great.

In later life, Viotti was apparently entrusted by one of his pupils to look after another Strad. He commissioned a replica to be made which he intended to pass off as the original, but the cunning craftsman, John Betts, sensing a scheme, fashioned two fakes instead, keeping the original for himself.

This could have been a risky debut but, by and large, Faber keeps the many separate strings of his story in harmony.